‘Nay, I can tell you more,’ said Wamba in the same tone, ‘there is old Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou; but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf too becomes Monsieur de Veau in like manner: he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment.’—Vol. 1, Chap. 1.
[23]. Hence the peculiar horror of cannibalism from the stronger sympathy with our own sensations, and the greater violence that is done to it by the sacrilegious use of what once possessed human life and feeling.
[24]. Thomas Cooper of Manchester, the able logician and political partisan, tried the experiment some years ago, when he invited a number of gentlemen and officers quartered in the town to dine with him on an ass’s foal instead of a calf’s-head, on the anniversary of the 30th of January. The circumstance got wind, and gave great offence. Mr. Cooper had to attend a country-meeting soon after at Boulton-le-Moors, and one of the country magistrates coming to the inn for the same purpose, and when he asked ‘If any one was in the room!’ receiving for answer—‘No one but Mr. Cooper of Manchester’—ordered out his horse and immediately rode home again. Some verses made on the occasion by Mr. Scarlett and Mr. Shepherd of Gateacre explained the story thus—
‘The reason how this came to pass is
The Justice had heard that Cooper ate asses!’
[25]. What a plague Moses had with his Jews to make them ‘reform and live cleanly!’ To this day (according to a learned traveller) the Jews, wherever scattered, have an aversion to agriculture and almost to its products; and a Jewish girl will refuse to accept a flower—if you offer her a piece of money, of jewellery or embroidery, she knows well enough what to make of the proffered courtesy. See Hacquet’s Travels in Carpathia, &c.
[26]. The dirt and comparative want of conveniences among Catholics is often attributed to the number of their Saints’ days and festivals, which divert them from labour, and give them an idle and disorderly turn of mind.
[27]. Lord Bacon, in speaking of the Schoolmen.
[28]. This is not confined to the Westminster. A certain Talking Potatoe (who is now one of the props of Church and State), when he first came to this country, used to frighten some respectable old gentlewomen, who invited him to supper, by asking for a slice of the ‘leg of the Saviour,’ meaning a leg of Lamb; or a bit of ‘the Holy Ghost pie,’ meaning a pigeon-pie on the table. Ill-nature and impertinence are the same in all schools.
[29]. One of them has printed a poem entitled ‘Rhodope;’ which, however, does not show the least taste or capacity for poetry, or any idea corresponding to it. Bad poetry serves to prove the existence of good. If all poetry were like Rhodope, the philosophic author might fulminate his anathemas against it (floods of ghastly, livid ire) as long as he pleased: but if this were poetry, there would be no occasion for so much anger: no one would read it or think any thing of it!